76 A NATURE WOOING. 



them by unnoticed. The body of this frog is short 

 and oval, the total length not exceeding an inch. The 

 head is small and triangular ; the snout pointed, and 

 the jaws toothless. Above, the body is dark, grayish 

 brown, while below it is lighter, but thickly mottled 

 with blackish specks. 



Of the habits of this frog but little seems to be re- 

 corded. Holbrook says : "It passes most of its days 

 in concealment near old fences or under the bark of 

 fallen trees, emerging only toward evening and after 

 heavy rains. It makes a feeble chirp at night, and at 

 times when captured ; and being but a clumsy swim- 

 mer, if thrown into the water it repeats this chirp fre- 

 quently in its endeavors to escape."* On the con- 

 trary, Cope, in his "Batrachia of North America," 

 says that "the cry is loud for the size of the animal." 

 He reports it as very common in ditches along the 

 streets of Houston and San Antonio, Texas, in Sep- 

 tember, and adds : "They are extremely shy and be- 

 come silent on the approach of human footsteps. As 

 only the tip of their nose projects above the water 

 level, they disappear beneath it without leaving a rip- 

 ple."f I afterward took it on two different occasions 

 near Ormond, but beneath bark or rubbish some dis- 

 tance from water. It is the sole representative of its 

 family in the United States, having been taken as far 

 north as New Madrid, Missouri. Eighteen genera 



* North American Herpetology, 1, 1836, p. 84. 

 tLoc.cit., 1889, 386. 



